Yellow
by HazelMaybe
Summary: Jace has been forced to move to New York City, and he is not happy about it. On his first day at his new school he crashes into a tiny redhead while chasing a yellow bird. Though the two initially dislike each other, will it stay that way? And what will happen when Clary's absent father shows up and wants his daughter back? Rated T for some cursing and violence later.
1. Chapter 1

_Hi! Um, this is my first story here, so please, constructive reviews are much appreciated! Gosh, I'm nervous..._

_Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own the Mortal Instruments. If I did, I would most likely not be writing fan fiction about them._

Four feet away, the small yellow bird was busy pecking industriously at a seed, occasionally pausing to ruffle its feathers, shockingly bright against dark green oak leaves. Clary held her breath, hand frozen in place on her paper, terrified that even the smallest movement would alert the animal to her presence and frighten it away. It was rare to see a bird that wasn't a ragged pigeon wandering around New York City. Slowly, slowly she tucked her pencil into her drawing pad and inched forward on the branch, reaching out with her free hand to steady herself as she carefully studied the scene before her, memorizing every last detail in order to set it down on paper later. The bird really was quite striking against the dark gray of the skyscrapers rising behind it, and already she was sketching it in her mind, tracing the graceful lines of its proud little head, attempting to capture its wild energy.

A twig snapped below and the bird was gone in a flash of yellow feathers.

"Simon," the girl sighed, turning to glare at the teenage boy who was standing stock still on the ground a few feet away, grimacing sheepishly. "Why are you so noisy?"

"Sorry, Clary, but we can't all be tiny redheaded Tarzans," Simon adjusted his glasses smugly, grinning at his joke until he noticed that the "Tarzan" had dropped out of the tree and was stalking him, getting ready to pounce.

"No, Clary! I didn't mean it! Really!" He frantically backed away, but it was no use. Simon was promptly tackled to the ground and held there by small but strong hands until he begged for mercy. Clary whacked him in the head a few times with her drawing pad, just to prove who was boss, then rolled off her best friend and helped him up, laughing at the leaves who had decided to make the boy's messy brown hair their new home.

"You barbarian, did you have to cover me in the dirt?" Simon complained, straightening his glasses and picking debris off his clothes, "People are going to think I escaped from the Bronx Zoo." Clary shrugged unashamedly as she reached up to brush leaves off his head, failing to notice when he turned away to hide a glowing red face.

"It's your own fault for lacking my superb ninja skills."

"Yeah, right."

"Shut up."

The friends playfully shoved each other as they left the park and walked to Clary's building only a few blocks away, laughing and arguing about anime and Simon's band's new name, the Golden Trousers.

"What does that even _mean_?" Clary snorted, "That you often wet your pants?"

"Because of the mind-blowing power of our music," Simon nodded in grim agreement, then chortled gleefully.

"Did you just _chortle_?"

When they reached her building, Simon stopped and swallowed nervously, trying to think brave thoughts. _Come on, just say it, you wimp._ He looked up and opened his mouth. Clary had paused on the first step to her apartment and was gazing at him expectantly with those soft green eyes. Why did they have to be so _green_?

"S-see you," Simon stuttered, then turned and practically ran down the sidewalk. Clary watched him nearly crash into a tourist, concerned and curious about whatever could have been making her friend behave so strangely lately, then turned to go inside, eagerly remembering that she had a bird to draw.

* * *

"For Christ's sake, could you get up off your lazy ass and actually help us unpack?"

Jace was lying on his new bed with his arms behind his head, scowling at the ceiling. He turned the scowl on his sister, who was standing with her own arms crossed angrily, glaring at him with a look that had transformed many a young man into a quivering pile of jelly. Jace snorted.

"Fine! Be that way!" She stomped off in her sequin mini skirt and pink kitten pumps, long black hair flying. Jace had no idea how she could haul moving boxes and furniture in that get up, but that was Isabelle for you.

Before he could return to burning a hole in his ceiling, Alec stuck his head in the door.

"Jace, was Isabelle bother-" He halted mid sentence, sensing the dark, moody aura his adopted brother was practically radiating.

"Come on, it won't be that bad. We'll get used to life here faster than you think." Leaning against the doorway, he nodded at the cleats in the open box beside Jace's bed. "Mom tells me this school has a great soccer team."

When his only response was a grunt, Alec sighed and left to rescue Max before he was crushed by a box of books much bigger than the skinny nine-year-old, still worried about his best friend's unhappiness. Jace hated change, especially after he found out he was adopted, and having to live in a new place and go to a new school really, _really_ upset him. Alec just hoped they could get through the first day at their new school tomorrow without Jace physically assaulting someone. Or someone assaulting him. He groaned. It was gonna be a long day.

Jace, Alec, and Isabelle walked together to their new school the next morning after dropping Max off at Foxhurst Elementary. Jace lagged behind the black haired brother and sister, feeling more and more grumpy with every step he took. Just a few months ago he finds out his parents aren't even his parents and then, bam! Mom was transferred, so we're moving to New York City! Now he had to go to some crummy inner city school in a place with far too many people and noises and far too few trees, his only friends his siblings- his adopted siblings. Why couldn't they have stayed in Idris? With his friends, and his team, and the clear blue sky and countless tall trees, real trees, nothing like these sad little shrubs withering among the harsh gray of concrete.

He was growling at a pigeon that had inadvertently stumbled into his path when something flashed at the edge of his vision. Spinning to his right he glimpsed a small bird the color of sunshine take off from a dingy street sign and disappear around the corner ahead. A bizarre, almost desperate feeling rose in him, and without really knowing why, he took off after it.

* * *

"Shitshitshitshitshit," Clary muttered, stumbling out her building's front door and tripping clumsily down the steps, one sneaker untied, backpack in hand. School didn't start for another thirty minutes, but she had promised Simon yesterday she would meet him before class so that they could work together on a tough history assignment, and thanks to her crappy alarm clock, she was going to be late. As she began to sprint the three blocks to school, she yanked her cellphone out of her bag, nearly dropping it in the street in the process. She had begun to dial Simon's number, intending to call and tell him she was on the way, when a flutter of yellow caught her eye an instant before she skidded around a corner and crashed head first into a wall.


	2. Chapter 2

_EEEK! I have followers! I can't believe it! I got so excited when I saw people had actually read this, I accidentally wrote another chapter, even though I really should be working on my Latin homework... bleh. I want to thank A Fishy In The Sea for writing a review and being so nice!_

_Disclaimer: Again, pretty sure I don't own the Mortal Instruments._

"Jace! Are you all right?!"

Jace groaned from where he lay on the filthy sidewalk, staring up at the cloudy sky. His head felt like it had been slammed repeatedly in a car door, and there was something jammed painfully into his back. He most definitely was _not _all right.

Alec's concerned face filled his vision and Jace allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, though his head felt as if it might split in two. His eyes went to the thing he had just been lying on. It was a cell phone, cracked almost entirely in half.

"What the _hell _was that?" Jace tried to rub the stars he was seeing out if his eyes with the heel of his hand, picked up the destroyed cell phone, then turned to the spot where the collision had occurred. To his dismay, a young girl was sitting up from the sidewalk, face twisted with pain and shock. Jace came very close to cursing, but he forced the stream of obscenities back down, realizing he had done enough damage without scandalizing the kid in addition to bowling her over and crushing her possessions. He brushed off Alec, who was checking the back of his head for gaping wounds, and walked over to where the stunned girl was sitting, holding a mostly empty backpack, surrounded by scattered papers and notebooks.

"Hey, kid, I'm sorry," he said, holding out the useless device, "but kids really shouldn't be running around the city by themselves, knocking into strangers." He turned to Alec, "Is there even a middle school around here?"

The girl started and seemed to finally get over her shock, only to have her face to turn a deep red almost as bright as her wild red hair. She glared at Jace with intense green eyes for a few moments, then snatched the phone out of his hand and shoved it into her bag. Within seconds she had shovelled the rest of her belongings into the backpack and was standing up, forcing the zipper closed over any loose papers with an angry _rip. _Now Jace was getting annoyed. Yeah, he had sent her and her things flying, but it was hardly his fault that the kid was racing around with her bag wide open. He grabbed Alec's arm and marched away, still feeling enraged eyes boring into his back.

* * *

The- the nerve of that boy! Calling her _kid_ and scolding her like she was some snot-nosed brat whose goal in life was to go around crashing into people! She was a _junior_ in high school, godammit. Sure she was a bit on the short side... Okay, a lot on the short side. And old ladies did have a habit of trying to give her nickels. But no one ever called her _kid_! Not someone her own age! It was unforgivable, even if his hair and eyes were the exact same color as golden honey.

Clary fumed the rest of the way to school, at one point coming dangerously close to taking out her frustration on an innocent businessman walking down the street who just happened to have blonde hair. She had given up entirely on meeting up with Simon in time to get any work done by the time she walked through the wide front doors of Crotona High with only ten minutes left until first period. After speed walking to English from her locker she dropped into her desk beside Simon, who glanced up and, upon seeing that her face was the precise shade of a cherry tomato, closed his copy of _Othello_ and took a deep breath.

"Did... something happen?" He asked carefully. Clary grunted irritably, slamming her bag on her desk and furiously setting to work on its zippers. After a few fruitless seconds of yanking and cursing under her breath, she gave up and rested her aching head in her hands.

"I'm sorry, Simon, I slept late and was running to get here when me and this guy crashed into each other," she gently prodded the back of her head and winced. "I think I'm fine, but my phone is a goner."

Simon was about to suggest Clary go see the nurse just to be safe when the bell rang and Mrs. Thomas got up to start taking attendance. Just as she was informing Magnus Bane that she was acquainted with his mother and therefore knew that his true name wasn't actually "Posh Spice", the classroom door banged open to reveal a tall boy with black hair and blue eyes and...

_Shit_.

The golden bastard walked into her English class.

* * *

_Crap_.

So, apparently the middle schooler he ran into was not really a middle schooler, but was actually in his grade. Currently sitting in his homeroom trying to murder him with her eyes, to be exact. Great.

Everyone else was staring at him too. They were embarrassingly late, thanks to this school's remarkable commitment to being as confusing as possible. After receiving their schedules from the office, Isabelle had headed in the direction she claimed the science wing was in, leaving him and Alec to navigate the endless labyrinth of halls to their homeroom. The map the office lady- who wouldn't stop giggling and blushing- had given them had been absolutely no help whatsoever, and they only managed to find room 212 after Alec begged/shouted at a mostly-deaf janitor to show them the way.

And now this hobbit-sized girl who clearly hated his guts was in his first class.

Unfortunately there were no empty desks together, so he and Alec, who was looking at the diminutive redhead with semi-recognition, had no choice but to separate. He sat near the back of the room, only two rows over and a few seats back from where the girl was heatedly whispering to the bespectacled boy beside her. Suddenly she turned her head to look at him and Jace, seeing that her face was still the bright red of a stop sign, tried and failed to suppress a laugh. Outraged, she whipped back around, fists clenched, as Jace chuckled into his arm.

Maybe this school wouldn't not be so terrible after all.


End file.
